As council conversations continue throughout North Simcoe regarding resident and non-resident user fees for shared municipal services, Penetanguishene council and staff shared various perspectives on the matter.
The finance and corporate services section of the recent committee of the whole addressed a letter which had been circulated to neighbouring municipalities, originally penned in May by Penetanguishene, met by mayors and CAOs of Midland and Springwater and Tay Townships in June, and readdressed in July. The request was for a third-party facilitator to collect data on all recreational services and amenities throughout the area as part of a study.
“At that meeting,” explained Mayor Doug Rawson, “we talked about not just arenas, but all recreational assets from trails to beaches to pickleball courts to the like. We said, what if we were to look at a third-party consultant to come to us, and look at it from a regional context on how we can put this together and share the burden across, and there’s no boundaries?”
In months leading up to the conversation, Tay Township had declined to join in the study and Tiny Township had expressed interest in learning what all area recreation aspects were but opted to wait until an early-September, heads-of-council meeting convened before coming to a decision.
“We’ve heard it loud and clear that user groups and residents don't want to be charged, and it was incumbent upon us to find a way forward,” Rawson stated. “We’ve talked about this quite a bit, about what that impact is going to be to the end user. I think we still need to do work on this.
“I would suggest today that we continue doing the work… with the town of Midland,” said Rawson, and “if not, we’ll have to look at this through the budget cycle.”
Coun. Suzanne Marchand thanked Rawson for the context and clarity on the town’s goals through the letter while noting offered programs were dependent on participation from regional users.
“We can’t run these things independently,” said Marchand. “We won’t have a Penetang Minor Hockey or Midland Minor Hockey if Tiny thinks they’ll be able to have a Tiny Minor Hockey Association; it’s just not big enough, right?”
Some in council chambers noted MidlandToday coverage of the matter within their observations, including Coun. George Vadeboncoeur who praised area mayors for continuing to try to find solutions.
“There are experts in the field that do this,” said Vadeboncoeur, “and maybe a third-party could come up with a resolution that would work for all the four municipalities in North Simcoe. I’m supportive of what’s being tried to do because I don’t like the alternative.”
In response to a question by Rawson regarding the user fee discussions taking not just months but years over council terms to find that solution, CAO Jeff Lees confirmed that administrations had been ongoing “for a long time,” but was optimistic looking ahead.
“Similar to the SSEA conversation, I think there might be some merit in hiring external,” said Lees. “Someone a little more independent and removed – not to say that internally we can’t do some of the heavy lifting.
“It’s a touchy subject and I think it’s an important conversation,” Lees added. “I think we need to take our time and do it right, and also be cognizant of being respectful to our user groups and the community as a whole, specifically as it relates to the upcoming budget – not that we want to rush that decision, but I think we need to be open and transparent with the community on where this is heading.”
Once council members had their say, section chair Coun. Bonita Desroches shared her views, unrestrained from any conflict of interest due to her recent retirement from Tiny Township as their long-time recreation director.
“We have experts in each of our municipalities who know recreation better than anybody,” said Desroches. “These are the directors we have in place; we have one in Penetanguishene, they have one in Tiny. There are parks people in Tay who are responsible for their business, and there are people in Midland who are also responsible for parks.
“If we can empower these people to get together around a table – they know the positions of their council – to talk to each other, maybe they can produce a homemade solution that could fulfill all the requirements that we all have at our own tables,” Desroches offered. “I think we’ve taken the experts away from the table and we’ve made this a political thing, and that’s what’s holding up the whole process.”
With conversation concluded, council received the letter for information and moved on.
MidlandToday spoke to Desroches following the meeting on her perspective.
“Back when I started recreation in Tiny many years ago, a lot of the relationships between the municipalities were managed by staff,” Desroches explained. “We would meet, we would talk about some of the difficulties that we were facing, and we would brainstorm and we would come to solutions.”
She related how over time, varying council directions had caused a disconnect which needed a reconnect as: “What we're doing now is not working, clearly.”
Desroches acknowledged the role of council as the purse-holders for the municipality while those that delivered the programs were more grassroots, noting that a municipality’s recreation services are not a money-maker.
“We can't use a business model to align recreation, it just doesn't work. The sooner we realize that recreation services are services that we provide to our communities, and it will cost us money like healthcare and daycare, it's going to cost the community money.
“Now yes,” Desroches added, “we do need to be sure that we're true to our taxpayers and that we're not inadvertently subsidizing folks who may not be our taxpayers; but there has to be some kind of middle ground where we can come together and make this work. There has to be.”
The North Simcoe letter for user-fees and charges for all recreation amenities and services can be located on the agenda page of the Town of Penetanguishene website.
Meetings of Penetanguishene council are held on the second Wednesday of each month, and can be watched live on Rogers TV cable 53 when available, or on the Rogers TV website.
Archives of council meetings are located on the Town of Penetanguishene YouTube channel.
